Put boot in

THE Herald's news story about pollution in Glasgow's Polmadie Burn from former chemical works should not have surprised us after a Diary story we ran years ago. It was a job advertisement on Jobsite which offered a position in Polmadie for a warehouse/yardsman to work at a chemical warehouse. We wondered about health and safety issues as the advertisement stated: "Duties to include the crushing of chemical drums, therefore candidate must have own steel toe-capped boots."

Burning sensation

A POSTSCRIPT on the sad death of Prodigy singer Keith Flint whose biggest hit with the band was Firestarter. In later years Keith was the licensee of his local pub in Essex, The Leather Bottle, which had an open fire. Keith explained that whenever he went to put coal on the fire and any customer who thought it would be funny to start singing Firestarter would be told to put a pound in the charity box on the mantelpiece. It raised nearly £100.

Pulled out the stops

OUR old chum Alison Campbell tells us that the congregations of the three linked Church of Scotland charges of Dollar, Muckhart and Glendevon are currently enjoying an extra stimulus to keep them on their musical toes each Sunday. Shrewd listeners have worked out that organist Lynn Hope manages to slip in some reference to a recently deceased notable figure. Says Alison: "Thus last Sunday the collection was uplifted to the strains of On the Street Where You Live from My Fair Lady, in tribute to Andre Previn, the previous Sunday there was an appreciative ripple of recognition for Daydream Believer in tribute to Peter Tork of The Monkees, and past Sundays have included Windmills of Your Mind for Michel Legrand, and a stirring rendition of the Match of the Day theme for goalkeeper Gordon Banks."

Chalk one up

OUR tales of how to address teachers remind Jim Starkey: "Frank McGurk, who went on to have a leading role in the teachers' union, the SSTA, was my history teacher at Lourdes Academy. At our first lesson he bounded up to the blackboard and wrote 'F. McGurk' with a large flourish. 'It's an initial, not an instruction,' he told us. Turned out he was a genius as a teacher."

Thanks for memory

GROWING old, continued. A south side reader travelling into Glasgow by train heard the woman opposite discussing ageing with her pal and declaring: "I seem to be have a poor memory these days – apart from remembering what my husband did wrong."

Marks the spot

WE asked about sneaking into adult films, and Willie Young recalls: "On holiday in Aberdeen years ago the pictures was our only option one wet August afternoon.

My elder brother and I refused to go to My Fair Lady so we left our mother to take our younger brother to it while our father took us to another picture house to see John Wayne in Big Jake. Unfortunately faither failed to observe that it was an 'X' certificate and he asked the cashier for 'An adult and two halves”'. Cue an embarrassing exit."

When I was a lad

TALKING about films, a Hebridean exile in Lanarkshire tells us that the Highlands and Islands Film Guild used to take films to remote areas. He says: "The showing of The Cruel Sea attracted capacity attendances from former war-time sailors. Many memories stirred by the dashing HM destroyers and corvettes and the track of torpedos and the detonations of shells and bombs. A subsequent showing of HMS Pinafore filled many Hebridean halls with the same audience who melted away when they realised it was in fact the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera."

Just clicked

PROBLEMS of today's technology. Says an Ayrshire reader: "I hate it when you go to look up the name of an actor on Wikipedia and three hours later it's way past your bedtime but you have somehow kept on clicking and become an expert on the Boxer Rebellion in China."